5. Michaela #2
Michaela was suddenly flustered as she felt her eyes grow hot with tears.
But there was no point in hiding now. “You do? It all seems to be so easy for you. You dress and talk and do whatever.” Michaela’s tears began to fall, but she kept Jay’s gaze, needing her to understand.
“And Iris, and the whole table last night, just made me feel like I — I didn’t know and now I am behind.
And I don’t know how to do this on my own. ”
“Shhhh,” Jay said as Michaela wiped her eyes with the back of her hands. Then she said, “How are your feet?”
Michaela snorted softly. “What?” she said.
“Sorry,” Jay said smiling, “but I mean how do you feel about your feet? And people touching them?”
Michaela stared at her, her tears shocked into retreat.
“I mean,” Michaela said, considering the question, “I always keep my feet neat. My ex, Brian, used to tease me for it but his feet were fucking crazy looking.” Michaela laughed, warming at having someone to share that with. She hated Brian’s feet.
“Okay cool, I will be right back,” Jay said, and she bounced up and off the bed, disappearing through Michaela’s door.
Michaela had just a second to wonder what the hell was happening when Jay reappeared, holding a small bag.
Sitting on the floor beside Michaela’s bed, Jay unzipped it and began searching inside it.
Unfolding her legs and then turning so they hung off the bed facing Jay, Michaela could see that Jay had gone to her room to grab nail polish.
“So,” Jay said, grinning up at Michaela mischievously, “when I felt overwhelmed and down about everything, my mother would talk to me while she painted my toenails. I rarely wore sandals, and it was like a little treat every time I took off my shoes. It reminded me of this other part of me, this other part that was very real, and my mom would say ridiculous things.” Jay laughed, lost in memory.
“It was one of the few times she spoke to me in Spanish,” she said softly.
“Your parents didn’t speak to you in Spanish?” Michaela asked.
“Sometimes, like in the heat of the moment or during a special occasion. When they came to America, they both worked hard to learn as much English as they could. My mom knows way more than my dad. When they had me, they taught me mostly English. I think they were afraid I’d be labeled as more different or would fall behind if I didn’t speak exclusively in English. ”
This saddened Michaela, but she couldn’t pretend not to have noticed what happened once kids entered ESL in her school district. “But what about you and your dad?”
“I speak to him in English, and he responds in English and Spanish–my understanding these days is way better than my speaking. Still, my mother is pretty insistent on our home being “in English”. One day I hope to change that though.” Jay cleared her throat slightly as if to change the subject, and Michaela didn’t want to pry.
Jay fished around in her bag and pulled out a bottle of red.
“Now, how about I paint your toes, and you talk to me about how you’ve been feeling? ”
Michaela couldn’t help but smile. She’d always wanted to paint her nails, but her parents would have never allowed it. And then when she was with Brian, she simply didn’t know how to do it. She was always overwhelmed in the drugstore aisles when she had even dared to think about painting them.
“My mother says red is for hussies,” Michaela said, smiling at some of the things she remembered her mother saying about the other girls at church.
“So red or…?” Jay said, raising an eyebrow, but she was also already opening the bottle.
“Red it is,” Michaela said. She had to fight hard to suppress the giddiness that she was feeling with every careful stroke of the red-lined brush.
“Mickey?” Jay said without looking up.
“Yeah?”
“Are you maybe ticklish?” Jay asked, finishing another careful stroke of the brush and then looking up.
“No, why?” Michaela asked.
“Well, it sorta feels like you’re vibrating in your skin a bit, and as someone who is trying to do a good job on your first pedicure—”
“Oh I’m sorry–” Michaela began, about to admonish herself for making Jay’s job harder. But then Jay smiled up at her, and Michaela felt her body relax.
“You’re excited, because this is the first time someone has done your nails,” Jay stated.
Michaela nodded slowly and then felt herself smile sheepishly.
“It’s okay, I was too, I was bouncing so much in my seat, my mom had to threaten to try another time for me to keep it together.
” Jay laughed, as if replaying the memory in the moment.
For a second, Michaela wondered what life would have been like if her mother had offered to do her nails.
What it would have been like to do this with her sister back at home instead of now.
The lack of the existing memories made Michaela ache slightly, till she refocused on Jay’s brown eyes, wide with pure excitement.
“I just feel a little silly? I am nineteen, for goodness’ sake.”
“So? We aren’t all on the same timeline,” Jay said easily, like she said so many things.
“It’s just, you’re so sure. Like none of this is hard for you.”
Jay, who had begun working on another toenail, looked up at her. It was the first time Michaela had seen such a serious look on her face.
“Mickey, I have had this as my reality for way longer than you. And truthfully, I am not always so confident. Things get to me sometimes. People get to me. But my mom used to tell me all the time that I had no choice but to just be me.”
“But doesn’t it make it harder?”
“Of course! I’m a Brown girl who grew up in a fairly white town. We didn’t have a lot of money. And while there were other immigrant and first gen kids around, but I was the child whose parents let their kid walk around with pig tails and wear dresses.”
Michaela took that in for a moment. “Exactly, so it's one more thing to make you different.”
“I don’t know, Mickey, you’re a Black girl and I am a Brown one.
We are already different on this campus and in the wider country.
I don’t think we are suddenly going to be loved if we change.
People are dicks and will hate if they are going to hate.
And why would I want to be around people who would hate someone as fabulous as me or you? ” Jay offered a small smile.
“Still, it's not always safe. I have seen things before. What happens to people like us.”
“Is that what you’re worried about here?”
Michaela thought about it. Of course she was, but seeing Iris and Sasha walk around so boldly had soothed her some. “It’s not like I’m not worried, but... sometimes I just feel silly and happy and free and then I feel like a fraud, like everyone will soon figure out I'm lying.”
Jay looked up at her, her eyebrows furrowed in deep assessment. “Look Mickey, I don’t have all the answers, you know? But I can promise to always have your back. I can promise to stick by your side while we figure stuff out. But one thing you should ask yourself–what would feel more like a lie?”
Jay’s words hit Michaela in the gut. She knew the answer. She sighed, and that seemed to be all the answer Jay needed.
“How about after this we go check out the Alliance and meet Ms. Cece? One of the things that I know helped me was not only my parents’ support but also finding friends, a little community where I could be myself.
My ex and her sister showed me that there was a space I could belong to.
And maybe that’s why I feel a little bit like a fish out of water here, even if I don’t seem like it. So let’s go check out the Alliance?”
Michaela looked down at Jay and saw the earnestness on her face. The vulnerability Jay was showing made her feel less alone in her own feelings. She felt herself smile, and then she nodded.
“Great, but first let me finish these and then we have to let them dry,” Jay said, going back to work, and as she did, Michaela felt the swoop of giddiness come back. She decided to lean into it.